EMPORIA GAZETTE
Weekend
PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING
✦ ✦ ✦
MAY 14 AND 15, 2016
FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1895 ✦ ✦ ✦ WWW.EMPORIAGAZETTE.COM
Business offers
unique spin
By Cathryne Scharton
[email protected]
P
inball wizards now have a place
to practice their craft in Emporia
Patrick Everett opened Game Cycle at 804 Sixth Street
in October. The store is a buy, sell and trade game shop,
but with a unique spin — Everett offers free games of pinball to customers.
When asked why he chooses to offer free games of pinball, Everett responded: “Because it’s something different.
Game Cycle is always known to step outside of the box…
Why? We are here to have fun.” He added it is also a way to
give back to the public. Relationships with customers have
been a top priority since the store first opened.
“We spend a lot of extra money that most games stores
don’t to give a better product to people,” Everett said.
Currently the shop has eight vintage machines on display. All of the machines were purchased and refurbished
by Everett’s repair team in Gardner. After spending about
six months in the Gardner store, to make sure all the
kinks are worked out, the pinball machines are sent out to
other Game Cycle locations. Everett owns nine locations
throughout Kansas and Nebraska.
“We chose to open another store because GameStop
closed down and we figured this was a good opportunity
for us,” he said.
Everett grew up in Chicago around pinball machines
and arcades. He opened his first store in Ottawa in 2010
and had a little extra space so he made an arcade, which
he ran for a year or two and then moved on to something
else, selling all of his games.
Everett has purchased 55 pinball machines since Oc-
P H O T O S B Y
C A T H R Y N E S C H A R T O N
Please see Pinball, Page 3
COLLABORATION BENEFITS THOSE IN NEED
By Jessie Wagoner
[email protected]
Collaboration to meet consumer needs is the goal of a
new partnership between
CrossWinds Counseling and
Wellness and Corner House,
Inc.
“We had a situation where
we were providing alcohol
and drug services and Corner
House was providing alcohol and drug services and it
was really rather silly,” Brian
Muench, LSCSW, Director
of Clinical Services at CrossWinds said. “Why not just
work together?”
Working together isn’t new
to the agencies, but the collaboration has recently grown.
Consumers in need of alcohol
and drug services can now
contact either CrossWinds or
Corner House for alcohol and
drug evaluations. Regardless
of which organization they
contact, the evaluation and
alcohol and drug services will
be provided at Corner House.
The collaboration makes
sense to Corner House and
CrossWinds, but the idea is
new in the state of Kansas.
“I don’t know that any
other mental health center in
the state is doing it this way,”
Muench said. “So we are
pretty excited that we are taking that leap of faith between
both partners. We don’t have
to compete with each other,
we can help each other out.”
“It seems to be a unique
idea in the state of Kansas
but I don’t understand that,”
Good Evening
Rod Shepherd, program director at Corner House said.
“It seems so simple, we don’t
have to make things hard.”
Shepherd said the collaboration is beneficial to ensure
that consumers receive the
necessary alcohol and drug
services as well as mental
health services.
“So many of the people that
we see with substance use
problems also have co-occurring mental health problems
that we aren’t really trained
to deal with,” Shepherd said.
“So this is a perfect way for
both of our facilities to get
what they need and help our
community.”
Corner House has fre quently referred consumers
to CrossWinds for mental
health services; but Shepherd
said many of those consumers
never seemed to make it for
their appointments. Having
multiple providers or appointment locations appeared to be
a barrier for consumers. The
organizations have removed
that barrier by having a CrossWinds staff member travel to
Corner House to meet with
them at that location.
“This is about working together to make Emporia a better place to live,” Shepherd
said. “Us working together is
going to help an untold number of people who have fallen
through the cracks before. We
are sealing up the cracks.”
For alcohol and drug services consumers can call
Corner House at 342-3015 or
CrossWinds at 343-2211.
RDA APPROVES CID
APPLICATION
By Cathryne Scharton
[email protected]
At Friday’s Rural Development Association
meeting, members approved the Community Improvement District application for the Emporia
Pavilions project.
The project requests about $3 million in funding from a CID. The city of Emporia defines CID
on the city website as, “A CID is a self-imposed
additional sales tax collectible only at that location. It is a means to encourage private and public
development without requiring taxpayers, businesses and others to aggressively subsidize the
economic growth. It is different from a TIF and
broader in scope.”
Currently, the Pavilions project only has one
letter of intent from Hobby Lobby, but RDA President Kent Heermann feels confident once more
things come into place, more retailers will show
written interest.
“We reviewed the application for completeness and it seemed to meet all the requirements,”
Heermann said. “When you get all the pieces put
together, with the CID, with the TIF part of it, the
community improvement district on the Pavilions project will make it much more marketable.”
Later this month the developers of the project,
Emporia Land Development, LLC, will attend an
International Council of Shopping Centers real
estate convention to network with retailers who
may be interested in coming to Emporia.